June 27, 1980

NEW SOLIDARITY

Page 11

Music: Vivian Zoakos

How Music Helped Win Mexico's Independence

Great music, particularly the music of Beethoven, played a crucial role in creating Mexico's republican tradition. Mexico's War of Independence at the beginning of the last century was won thanks in great part to the fact that republican leaders of the stature of Morelos, Hidalgo, and Guerrero understood the power of music as a weapon to win over the population to the republican cause. This is demonstrated by the case of the Mexican musician Jose Mariano Elizaga who aided Morelos's successful conspiracy of 1813. The Inquisition, which aided the Spanish viceroy against the republican forces during this period, confirmed that music was "a very dangerous factor of rebellion" used by the insurgents. Elizaga's music, heard in churches, theaters, and political meetings throughout Mexico, was spread through the country by the revolutionary press. On July 22, 1813, Morelos's newspaper in the southern state of Oaxaca, the Correo Americano del Sur, published a poetic composition which inspired the population to support Morelos. The Correo reported that Mariano Elizaga set the poem to music and played his composition in the cathedral of Valladolid (now the city of Morelia) to accompany the patriotic singer Joaquin Ponce de Leon. "Nio Filarmonico" It was no accident that Elizaga played in Valladolid where he was born and educated. Valladolid was the center of the humanist republican conspiracy led by Jose Perez Calama during the last quarter of the 18th century. Hidalgo and Morelos were also educated in Valladolid. Elizaga himself is the direct product of the renaissance impulse which overwhelmed New Spain during the reign of King Carlos III on the Spanish throne. Elizaga became famous in 1791 at the age of six, for performing masterfully on the clavichord without any formal lessons. The Spanish viceroy in New Spain at that time, Juan Guemes Pacheco de Padilla, who belonged to Carlos Ill's progressive current, paid for the young prodigy to

move to Mexico City and be educated by the few music teachers who lived in the country. By the time he was 13, Elizaga, who had become known as the "nio filarmonico" (philharmonic child), returned to Valladolid to take on the position of third organist of the cathedral. He was later to become first organist. America's First Conservatory In 1824, the year in which Mexico's independence from Spain was formalized with the institution of the republican Mexican Constitution, Elizaga founded the Mexican Philharmonic Society. The circle who aided him in this enterprise included politicians and military men such as Dr. Sotero Castenada, the legal adviser for Morelos's army who later became Morelos's personal secretary, the brother of President Guadalupe, and a number of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Beethoven Performed The Philharmonic's first concert included the first Mexican performance of Ludwig van Beethoven. With Beethoven, Mexico's republican leadership showed that its commitment to building a new nation was predicated on the development of a republican citizenry through raising the popular level of morality and culture. On this point, Elizaga was clear. In his speech during the opening ceremonies of the first Philharmonic Society concert he proposed that, as in Plato's Republic, music should be the foundation of all children's education in the new Mexican republic. Elizaga was accompanied on the podium by President Guadalupe Victoria and Vice President Nicolas Bravo. With this idea in mind, Elizaga founded the American continent's first conservatory school of secular music a year later in 1825. This great Mexican musician was also the author of Mexico's first musical textbook, Elements of Music. In his text, Elizaga established the primacy of not only training good performers, but of creating real musicians. According to Elizaga, all musical education programs should include two things: the history of music, and the philosophy of musical composition. Elizaga was convinced that Mexico could produce its own Beethovens and Mozarts only through the proliferation of Neoplatonic musical academies such as the one he founded. Only through these means, he said, could the

Mexican republic move beyond a long period of "composers who haven't had a genuine understanding of music and have merely adorned it with gothic adornments." This column was contributed by Etty H. Estevez of Mexico City, who with her husband is researching Beethoven's collaboration with the Mexican republicans.